Before our trip to Asia I learned Mandarin for our time in Hong Kong and Tagalog for our time in the Philippines.

Upon arrival in each country I discovered that they speak primarily Cantonese in Hong Kong and Visalayas where we were in the Philippines.

It didn’t matter…

I was able to communicate just fine and understand what was going on because of something that is easy to see and is a universal language…

PASSION.

Passion overcomes language barriers. It was able to let us see which businesses truly were excited about their customer experience, what neighborhoods wanted to teach us about their history and culture, and how many memories each place wanted us to hold forever in our minds and thoughts.

(The answer in each of these places was too many to count. Both were incredible places that I recommend to anyone who is able to go and visit.)

What does passion look like and why is it easy to spot?

When you have passion your eyes light up.

You start to get this nervous and excited energy that is exuded to others in the room.

All of the sudden money matters less than continuing to do what you are doing.

Working isn’t a “job.”

You want to tell others about your passion and hear about theirs.

The status quo kind of ticks you off.

Doing what is right outweighs doing what is “expected” of you.

Rebel isn’t such a terrible word anymore.

I wasn’t able to speak the right languages in Asia but being able to spot passion required much less work.

The more we can recognize and encourage passionate work and passionate living the more things like “learning the wrong foreign language” won’t matter because we know at the end of the day passion will get us through the day.

Want to get some action from this post?

Ask five people today what they are passionate about and really makes them tick and see what answers you get.

More importantly see how their eyes and ears perk up when they start to talk about it.